


Caretaker

by orphan_account



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), M/M, Major Illness, Old Age, Older Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-27 01:37:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15013853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Fourty years ago Shuichi promised Kokichi that he would always love him, and remain by his side until the day they die.He just never remembered that he would have to go through with it.





	1. Memories

**Author's Note:**

> So apparently something was happening this week for Oma/Saihara so I made my contribution.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine  
You make me happy when skies are gray  
You'll never know dear, how much I love you  
Please don't take my sunshine away" -Johny Cash

 

\---

Shuichi Saihara used to enjoy breakfast with his husband. They had so many conversations over the years. Funny ones, somber ones, and just bizarre ones. They went over every subject imaginable, and Shuichi was fine with it. Every day he focused on Kokichi's eyes. A beautiful purple that seemed to reflect the light in the room. When he was happy they seemed to glisten, and when he was sad they seemed to grow darker near the pupils.

Three years ago the lights went out. The beautiful glint Shuichi fell in love with was replaced with a bland gray decorating a vacant stare. The petite frame that used to move with such energy was frozen by the decay of his mind. Shuichi was witness to the death of Kokichi.

They were eating breakfast, as usual. Shuichi always woke up an a hour or two before Kokichi and ate a bowl of whatever cereal was cheapest at the time of purchase. That morning in particular his eyes lingered on a picture in the kitchen. 

It was an old one, about fourty years. It showed Kokichi standing in front of some supermarket, yelling into a microphone. It was from the time Kokichi ran for mayor. Some supermarket chain moved into town and a bunch of smaller stores were going out of business, the usual small town stuff. Then Kokichi threw his hat in as an independent. The mayor was up for reelection and didn't really mention it, and neither did his opponent. They were mostly accusing each other of being dishonest. Kokichi promised to tax the supermarket out of town. 

It was a rough year. Every morning Kokichi had a copy every newspaper in town on the table, never explaining why a town of three thousand people needed four newspapers that never printed anything different. The TV was always on the local news, and Kokichi was the candidate getting easily the most coverage. 

Kokichi ended up in second place, twelve votes behind. He maintained the belief that the supermarket did him in. Whether or not it was their donations to the winner or they rigged the election depended on his mood.

After finishing his breakfast Shuichi went back into the bedroom. Kokichi was awake and staring vacantly at the ceiling. Shuichi always wondered what he was thinking. That was nothing new of course. Once upon a time Shuichi thought he understood Kokichi to some extent. Kokichi would always say what would get the most entertaining response from Shuichi. Shuichi used that principle to navigate conversations with Kokichi, and finally he began to make sense. Now he hardly said anything.

Shuichi pulled the covers back as he walked to the side of the bed Kokichi was on. He put his arm under Kokichi's legs and another under his back, picking him up. He was extremely grateful for Kokichi's diminutive stature. and the fact that he had aged rather well. 

Shuichi tried not to pay attention to the confused face Kokichi gave him as he carried him into the kitchen and sat him down at the table. It registered somewhere in the back of his mind that Kokichi seemed to be gripping him a little tighter than usual as he pulled away. A few minutes later Shuichi sat next to him with the same bowl of shitty, cheap cereal.

Shuichi hated feeding Kokichi. It always reminded him of just how much Kokichi had worsened. How someone so smart, so articulate, so... able could be reduced to this state. At least he could chew and swallow, mostly unassisted. 

Kokichi's breakfast was over after way too long. Shuichi picked him up and carried him over to his chair in the living room. It was purple with a black and white checkerboard pillow. Shuichi took great care in setting him down and adjusting his pillow behind him. Then Shuichi moved over to his chair, which was plain and black.

He picked up the remote and began surfing channels, eventually finding a documentary titled 'Crime of Passion.' Shuichi hated how he was in a documentary with such a crappy title. 

The documentary was about the most famous case Shuichi ever had. Some famous actress was found to have hung herself a few days after being diagnosed with ALS. Although it was ruled a suicide her brother thought it was suspicious, and hired Shuichi. After interviewing several people and her husband he decided that her husband killed her, strangling her and then hanging her from the ceiling. Then Shuichi managed to prove, contrary to his tearjerking claims that she didn't want to live through her body's decline and begged him to kill her, he actually made money off her life insurance. The prick got twenty years in some minimum security 'prison.' 

It was an okay documentary. It was a little too fond of making some sort of Sherlock-Shuichi and Kokichi-Watson comparison despite the fact that Kokichi appeared exactly once in the movie; to give Shuichi his lunch. Shuichi did admire the director's instincts for seeing that the case was more complicated than it seemed, and he did stay out of the way. 

It ended with news footage of the court room after the verdict was announced. The husband was leaning back in his chair rubbing his temples while his team of lawyers comforted him. The judge, jury, and prosecutor got up to disperse. Credits occupied whatever space significant people weren't. It finally ended on a still image of Shuichi and Kokichi standing next to each other in the crowd of onlookers. Shuichi looked angry, while Kokichi was just bored. Slowly it faded into a painting of the picture.

Shuichi remembered when the documentary first came out. That was such a long time ago. The painted faces on the screen were smooth, their hair was full and colored, and their eyes were still full of emotion.

Shuichi turned to Kokichi. It looked like a completely different person. His dull eyes were glued to the screen and he seemed to attempting to understand it in some way. Shuichi could almost see the cogs turning. He wondered if Kokichi remembered the first time they saw it. Did he remember how he held his hand and rambled on about how Shuichi could've solved the case much quicker if he just called in DICE to 'coerce' him into confessing? Did he even recognize himself on the screen?

Shuichi then noticed that Kokichi was fidgeting a little. He sighed and stood up. He went over and picked Kokichi up and carried him towards the bathroom. At first helping Kokichi use the bathroom disgusted him somewhat, but three years of it desensitized him, plus the realization that he had seen Kokichi naked plenty of times before: just under different circumstances.

He quickly put Kokichi on the toilet and went outside. It wasn't necessary by any means, but he thought that Kokichi deserved some form of privacy. Then he swore he heard a thud.


	2. Another Funeral

A fucking aneurysm. That's what did Kokichi Oma in. Not age, not the decline of his mental faculties, not even the high-profile assassination he always used to talk about. A brain aneurysm while squatting over a fucking toilet. 

The staff at the funeral home left him alone a few minutes ago. Shuichi could commend them on that. Not many other people learned the fine art of leaving other people alone. It was a sure sign of an idiot, trying to comfort a stranger through a loss.

Shuichi's angry thoughts were interrupted by the first tear. He felt it crawl out of his eye and slide down the inside of his cheek as if desperate to get away from him. He instinctively wiped it away with his sleeve. Shuichi tried to recall the last time he cried.

One year ago. Kaede's funeral. He remembered it perfectly. 'The Ultimate Pianist' was found when she didn't show up to record for a new album and her producer went to her home. The door was unlocked so her producer went inside and after a few minutes of searching he found her. She had hung herself in her hallway. The music world collectively mourned the loss of one of it's greatest pianist. Views of her songs on the internet skyrocketed and the handful of prominent musicians she had worked with payed tribute to her, musically or otherwise. Shuichi cynically noticed how the producer who found her probably financially benefited from her death.

Shuichi mentally slapped himself. His husband had died less than two weeks ago but there he was, rambling on about the advantages of suicide for businessmen. He redirected his thoughts towards the coffin in front of him.

Did he know what was happening to him? Sometimes aneurysms had signs before they happened, so did he feel any different? In his final moments did he know that he was about to die; or was it just one more feeling he couldn't understand out of many? Preferably he didn't recognize it. Then he would've panicked. He would've been begging for help, silently crying out to that stranger on the other side of the door. If he knew what was happening then that stranger would never forgive himself. 

More tears were emerging. His body was shaking. Gradually he just let go. His body convulsed and his breathing turned into hyperventilating. Snot emerged from his nose onto his upper lip.

He was such an asshole. That's what he thought about himself. He wasn't like that when he found Kokichi's body. No, then he coldly checked his pulse and went out and called 9-1-1. He wasn't crying over his husband. No, if he was crying over the man he loved then why wouldn't he have cried when he found him? Why didn't he cry?

He was crying over a memory. He was crying over the Kokichi he knew what seemed like so many years ago. The Kokichi that lied to fluster him and then confused him even more by confessing that he was lying. The Kokichi that could cry so convincingly that Shuichi woud involuntarily reach out to comfort him, but would then smile and wave it off. He was crying for him, not that mindless husk that just occupied space and absorbed Shuichi's time.

How was that possible? To love someone so intensly at one point but to almost... hate them at another point. Fourty years prior Shuichi made a promise to Kokichi. He promised to love him, to care for him, to in both mind and body stay by his side until the day they died. 

He broke that promise. Shuichi began crying even more. He promised the one person who he cherished more than anything or anyone else a few basic things. His heart, his mind, and his time. Kokichi was always willing to do the same, even if it didn't look like it. And Shuichi couldn't do the same. He lied to the greatest person to ever come into his life.

He really was an asshole. He was using his husband's funeral to whine about himself. Such a fucking asshole.

Eventually his crying subsided. He didn't want to think. Everything he thought regarding the situation was wrong. Nothing he did would help.

It wasn't this hard the other times. Tenko, Kaito, Kaede, Rantarou, he had been to all their funerals and quite a few others. Those times he was sad, oh so very sad, but he at least knew what to think and say; what all his friends would've wanted. With Kokichi he was... lost.

He stood over the coffin for what seemed like hours, silently focusing on all the little things that happened around him. A slight breeze over his hand, a fly crawling across the coffin lid, a door opening and closing in the distance,

Shuichi left. He walked a little quicker than usual. He got into his car and drove home. He brushed his teeth, got into some more comfortable clothes, and went to bed.

\---

That night Shuichi Saihara died. His heart gave out somewhere around 10:00 PM. In the morning a cleaner came in and found him. His face was plain. No smile of relief, no frown of regret, no twisted amalgamation of features indicating fear or pain. Just the look of someone who wanted five more minutes.

The death of the detective who solved the Laura Bonham case was viewed as a sad day for criminal justice history. The general consensus was that he died of a broken heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got really emotional while writing this, and I'm pretty sure I subconsciously tried to work through some personal issues while writing.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading. I'd love a comment to tell me how I did!

**Author's Note:**

> I'd appreciate a comment to tell me how I did, and thanks for reading!


End file.
